I've cracked it! Inventor creates fool-proof egg separator that sucks the yolk from the white without any mess

  • It works like a pipette by sucking the yolk cleanly into an attached plastic case before being squeezed out in one piece
  • Materials and device have been approved by the Food Standards Agency
  • The Yolkr costs £18 and comes in six colours

By Victoria Woollaston

Published: | Updated:

For many cooks, separating an egg yolk from the white is a messy business. As you juggle the yolk back and forth between the halves of the egg, your fingers get stickier and stickier as the white drains away.

Then, more often than not, you have to pick stray bits of shell out of the bowl.

Now one entrepreneur has come up with a device which he believes will do away with all that.

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An entrepreneur from New Zealand has created the Yolkr - an egg separator that looks like a giant pipette and can hygienically suck the yolk from an egg white without any mess

An entrepreneur from New Zealand has created the Yolkr - an egg separator that looks like a giant pipette and can hygienically suck the yolk from an egg white without any mess

The contraption is made from plastic which has been approved by the Food Standards Agency.

The contraption is made from plastic which has been approved by the Food Standards Agency. It costs £18, plus £4 shipping costs, and comes in six colours. The Yolkr was launched as a Kickstarter campaign in January and raised more than three times the target amount

HOW DOES THE YOLKR WORK?

1 Gently squeeze again to place the yolk where you want it.

Crack an egg gently into a bowl - multiple eggs can be cracked into the same bowl as long as they don't split.

Hold the Yolkr above an egg yolk so it is just touching the surface - be careful not to put too much pressure on and cause the yolk to split.

Squeeze the coloured flexible plastic part of the Yolkr to such the yolk from the white.

The yolk will sit in the plastic holder at the bottom of the gadget.

Place the Yolkr over the mixing bowl or plate where you want the yolk to go and squeeze the Yolkr again to release the yolk.

After the egg has been cracked into a bowl the gadget, which works like a pipette, sucks up the yolk into a wide-mouthed plastic nozzle when the rubber top is squeezed.

It then holds the yolk safely until the cook is ready to use it, when with another squeeze of the top it plops it back out in one piece.

Hamish Dobbie, a mechanical engineer, came up with the idea last year after watching a friend painstakingly trying to split eggs – and failing.

'After making a real mess, and having to dig egg shells out of the bowl, she said that there must be a better way of doing it,' said Mr Dobbie, 30, from Auckland, New Zealand. 'I did a little bit of research and came up with a very basic idea for a tool that sucks the yolk out of the white.

'I thought if I could make something that worked well and looked good I could be on to something.'

Ten months later the device, known as the YOLKR, is about to appear on the shelves in Britain, costing £18.

Mr Dobbie added: 'The trick was getting the shape of the nozzle right so it didn't break the yolk when it was sucked up.

'There were many, many eggs of all shapes and sizes broken in the testing stages, but we got there in the end.

'The benefits are the cleanliness and the hygiene. The traditional ways of splitting eggs involve the yolks and the whites touching hands or the outsides of the shells. YOLKR eliminates that. It is a lot quicker and you don't run the risk of breaking the yolk.'

Recipes calling for yolks to be separated from whites include meringue, mousse, souffle and creme brulee.

Yolks are used to make mayonnaise, custard and sponge cakes.

Dobbie claims the Yolkr is so easy to use he successfully tested it on his 90-year-old grandfather.

Dobbie claims the Yolkr is so easy to use he successfully tested it on his 90-year-old grandfather. To suck the egg yolk from the white, hold the Yolkr above it and squeeze the coloured plastic top. The yolk will be sucked into the plastic case. Squeeze the Yolkr again to release the yolk

Not only can the yolk be removed from the white without leaving any residue, it can also be popped back out of the device in one piece.

Not only can the yolk be removed from the white without leaving any residue, it can also be popped back out of the device in one piece. Yolks are used for mayonnaise and custard, among other recipes and designer Dobbie plans to release a Yolkr recipe book if his stretch target of £80,000 on Kickstarter is met

  • Support the YOLKR project at yolkr.com or on Twitter

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